Clean Kid-Friendly Cooking!

This weekend has been ground zero of clean eating in my house! With nearly non-stop snow, we’ve had to really have some fun indoors and the kitchen is a great place to do it! In my house cooking is a family affair and we had some big things we wanted to make! My kiddos are very active participants in the process! In my house we have three weekend food traditions – Friday nights we make our own pizzas and play Wii or watch a movie together, Saturdays we bake something clean and delicious that we can freeze and enjoy throughout the week, and Sunday mornings we make “kick you in the face pancakes”. There is a great story about my younger daughter threatening to kick our family dog in the face if she tried to take her pancakes that earned them that name… check out that recipe here. Friday nights we used to order pizza. We obviously don’t do that anymore!! Now we not only get to spend more quality time together but the girls get to customize their personal pizzas and learn about fresh ingredients!

This Saturday we had an epic day of baking and cooking including some delicious and amazingly clean cinnamon rolls, corn tortilla chicken and cheese enchiladas, and a delicious white chicken chili. I love letting my daughters get involved in the process and they are learning how to cook with wholesome ingredients, prepare clean food, and enjoy the process of spending time in the kitchen.

The cinnamon rolls were old school, so with the three hour long rounds of letting the yeast rise it took about four hours total but with all the blustery snow outside and the breaks for Wii Dance Party it was fun. Taylor had a friend over, Kennedy, who helped and the girls not only made the cinnamon rolls, but their own enchiladas! The cinnamon rolls were delicious and the chili hit the spot. Here are the recipes we used for our fun day at home in the kitchen. Gracious Pantry is where we found the cinnamon roll recipe, my head is where the chili recipe came from. 🙂

Clean Eating Cinnamon Buns(Makes approximately 15 rolls)

Note: This recipe will require 3 hours of total rising time. So plan accordingly.

Step 3 – Using a wooden spoon, stir in the flour. When it’s partially mixed and too thick to mix with the spoon any longer, begin kneading by hand. This will be very sticky at first, but you’ll find that the more you knead, the more the gluten starts to pull everything together. In the end, you’ll have a fairly firm ball of dough. So keep kneading (about 10-15 minutes).

Step 4 – Coat the ball of dough in a thin layer of olive oil and set back in the bowl. Cover with a towel and let stand for 1 hour to rise.

Step 5 – Punch down the dough, and cover again. Let it sit for another hour.

Step 6 – Punch down the dough one last time, cover and let sit for 10 minutes while you prepare the filling.

Step 7 – In a medium mixing bowl, blend all your filling ingredients together. You should have a nice, thick, molasses-like filling when you are done mixing.

Step 8 – On a generously floured surface, roll out your dough. Again, be generous with the flour. If you are not, the dough will stick to your counter making the rolling process a real chore. Roll the dough into a rectangle. Cut with a knife if necessary and place the cut offs in the center of the dough to be rolled back in with the rolling pin (no wasting good dough here!) In fact, if you look closely at the photo above, you can see the lines in the dough where I rolled my cut-offs back in.

Step 9 – Pour the honey mixture onto the middle of your rolled dough.

Step 10 – Smear on your filling. Make sure it only touches 3 of the four sides of your rectangle.

Step 11 – Roll the dough, starting with the side that has the honey mixture up to the edge.

Step 12 – When you get it rolled almost all the way, use your fingers to “paint” some water onto the edge of the dough that does not have any honey mixture on it. Give the dough one final roll so the dough will be “glued shut” by the water.Note: If you get to this point and feel like you should just throw the whole thing in the trash, you’re probably doing it right.

Step 13 – Cut the roll into approximately 1 inch strips, and place each strip in an oiled baking pan or casserole dish. You want the dish to be too big for all your rolls as they will still need room for rising and baking.

Step 14 – Cover the dish with a towel and let the dough rise, one last time, for 1 hour.

Step 15 – Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.

Step 16 – If using the pecans, sprinkle them on now. Place rolls in the oven and bake for 15-18 minutes.

Step 15 – Allow to cool and squeeze some honey over the top of the rolls.